Endaltar lay hidden in amongst hills deep within the usually flat and boggy Eastern British Sector. In the sector is a large region called Nacana, where many megacities, regular cities and towns dwell, Endaltar is a large farming village amongst these. With its buildings spanning generations a variation of architecture mushrooms out from the centre, which is an old Xolvunt, having a dome like base, rectangular body and a chute that aims up and holds aloft a large, cracking Loop. Low to the ground houses billow out the graveyard below, trees hang to a similar size as this dense area narrows into a rotamotor road, which fractals into pathways slithering around the houses and shrubs.

This one long road for automobiles is called the North End Road, and is where Darnell Tare lies belly down on high grass staring at his foot. His shoe is caught on a green stripped bike, with a big rusty bell on the handle bar. Darnell’s brown eyes are wide, his face is pale, and his brain is reaching for memories that have splintered off far away. This is Tristan Cycad’s bike, he finally thought, but he hadn’t seen nor thought about Tristan in weeks, maybe months. That would be okay had it not been for the fact that Tristan was his best friend. We would always walk to school together. I’m going to be late-

Picking up the bike and his camera, Darnell made his way back to a cul-de-sac full of grumpy houses that looked like they were giving each other the cold shoulder. The front gardens where empty, and the windows were closed. An elephant in the room.

He knocked on the door and waited, noticing mud smears down his oversized school uniform. Mrs. Cycad opened the door as Darnell raised her sons bike. She looked down at him, wondering why a teenaged schoolboy was at her door, until she stopped wondering. He watched as her eyes grew wider, and wider, almost popping out with their never ending whiteness, her large black retinas burnt into his. She ran back inside. The door swung. The motion carried. The door didn’t close. She moans and runs up stairs. Darnell lowers the bike. The door hangs ajar.

Seeing the old bike in front of the house gave him an emptiness mixed with fringing excitement, like finding a new room in the abandoned asylum you’d frequent. A sting of adventure. The sight is so viscerally harrowing he takes a photograph.

At the bus stop, Darnell reflects back on this moment, whilst waiting around the varying aged teens who knew faintly of each other. He also thinks about the bike that he left outside the Cycad home, it was more of a shell of a house. When tripping over the bike and almost breaking his camera, he didn’t see it coming. How did I miss a bike that ugly? The polybus bends round the corner.

With his head resting gently on the vibrating window he stares at the passing farm land as they reach the outskirts of Endaltar. Whiteish yellow crops grow in well managed lines. Far off in the distance, silver figures squirt flames onto the vegetation- killing it. Darnells dad said it was because of the black rot that was infecting the crops, his father fancied himself a gardener, he often would say ‘monocropped vegetables just like monocropped minds are susceptible to viruses and downfalls’.

Passed the shivering crops awaiting their demise, is a large woodland expanse that echoes the trees that dot their way towards and spread within the village. Dark thick trees of oak and yew. The yew’s have taken over the area, their domination catalysed by their fast cycle of seeds, falling, growing, repeating. Landing their hardy germinators into other trees, and taking them over.

People from his school, and many other schools from the nearing town, chatter and laugh around him. His head still shakes from the window. His eyes still locked outside. His memories of Tristian are still so weak. Only having a few good ones to hold onto.

Darnell sits on top of a table with a half eaten sandwich in his hand, leaves splatter shadows over him and the three friends. Yarnulsh, a curly, black haired boy with his large arm around Liffi, a blonde haired girl, who’s highlighted hair reaches down to her shoulders. She taps the ends of Yarnulshes fingers with hers, noticing all the little bumps and scrapes. His digits are much wider and longer than hers, the pattern at the tips swirl in and out. To Darnells left, is a smaller, sunken eyed person, their hair runs straight on the sides and front, but buzzed on the back, this is Jowh.

All wearing their crinkled school uniforms with loose ties. Colours of red, yellow and black, the striped ties stand out over the white shirt. Darnell, Liffi and Jowh share similar makeup that has been recently applied, but will have to come off as soon as the break ends and the teaching begins.

“I think it works for her, she suits black.” Jowh responds to Liffi, this is as much as Darnell knows as he has just regained attention, now he seeks a way in.

“Yeah well you’ve got a gothic fetish” Liffi snorts, in her high strung, southern accent. A smiling Yarnulsh pulls the back of her shirt, an attempt at stopping her from getting into another fight.

“You have a fetish fetish” Jowh sparks, Liffi goes red, a tussle is on the approach.

“Do you remember Tristian Cyad?” Darnell seizes the moment, jutting into the tension, he passes his half eaten sandwich to Yarnulsh.

“Who?” Yarnulsh begins to eat the lettuce and vam sandwich.

“He’s in our year, we used to get the bus together.”

“No idea mate, a transfer may haps.”

“I can’t remember the last time I saw him.”

“Okay…” Liffi adds, it’s almost a question.

“I don’t know who that is either, are you sure they even came here?” asks Jowh.

Darnell keeps his stare forwards, beyond the quad, and the football being played, beyond the large windows on the rusty brick school building.

“I found his bike this morning. We went for long rides around our village, looking for crypts and bunks. How the fuck could I forget someone like that?”

A moment, reminiscent of waiting at the bus stop, a stale wind.

Jowh attempts to cut the tension that Darnell has built with his gloomslinging. “I wouldn’t worry, he’s probably bunked.”

Liffi see’s this attempt and says “Besides, you’ve got the two greatest friends you could ask for right here” she purposefully gestures around her, not stating who they are. Yarnulsh and Jowh share a look, and then a grin.

Darnell breaks his doomfilled character, he smiles widely and punches Liffi in the arm, they laugh and play fight until the bell is rung.

Darnell drags his black, scratched shoes down North End Road, his inner thumbs pulling on his bag straps as the camera dangles to his right. Off in the distance, behind several rows of houses is a dark grey plume of smoke rising in front of even greyer clouds. The smoke is creeping ever closer as the farmland continues to be scorched.

All of a sudden, cars start jetting passed Darnell, rendering a once quiet road to the contrary. Darnell catches a glimpsing flash of light from above-

LIGHTNING! Darnell adores photographing the perils of nature. When he was younger he used to go storm chasing with his camera and tripod, until a pole right next to him was struck, after the ringing left his ears and the blinding light flickered up into the sky, he decided to only take his camera from then on.

He’s attempting to capture the forking glow when the cars disappear almost as suddenly as they appeared, then a droplet lands on his lens, he’s decided to run home.

The sounds of an oven air the living room, and the smell of cooked onions linger in the open plan kitchen that is connected by a broad arch. Darnell sits at a long dinning table with his mum, she asked about his day and he responded truthfully but glossed over the early mornings events. He asked about hers, and she answered by running through the work she had done in the day. Most of it Darnell couldn’t understand, but he saw his mother was excited about the work she was doing which made him happy, so he smiled, nodded and asked more. She had similar curly, ginger hair as him, hers is a fluffy bob, his is short and flops around at the top. Both still wearing the suits of the day, Darnell hadn’t taken off his uniform and she hadn’t yet taken off her navy suit for work. It makes me feel powerful, she would often say.

You are powerful without it, Darnells dad, who entered the room, would often respond. He came with food on plates, he wore a blue summer dress and had a flower in his dark blonde hair. Never without mud under his nails, but the others didn’t mind. “Grubs up bubs. Here ya go pup.” he placed a plate of pasta in front of Darnell. “Thanks hon” said his mum. The parents close their eyes, breath in and lower their heads, after a few seconds they swirl their heads from left, up, right and finally down again, keeping his heads bowed they breath out. A regular Prastist practise.

As they all tucked in, Darnell enjoyed the moment and then thought about enjoying the moment, which turned his thoughts on to why he wouldn’t enjoy the moment, why he shouldn’t enjoy it.

“Do you remember the Cycads?” his question stopped the clattering forks of the feast. After dropping their smiles and sharing a glance, his parents look to Darnell.

“Of course, I spoke to Mrs. Cycad the other day. We’re old friends. Why?” says the father.

“Today I found a bike that belonged to Tristian, their son. But I’ve only just remembered him. I don’t understand-” Darnell gets cut off by his mum.

“They don’t have any children, never have, not to our knowledge” she then moves the conversation on from the Cycads. She can feel something on her tongue, wanting to come out, but it doesn’t. Darnell feels it too. He sits in silence, keeping his eyes down, not wanting to keep the awkwardness alive.

He focuses on the plate in front of him, laid on the long wooden table. Thoughts of the house flood his mind, he imagines the large dining room he’s in, how it connects straight to the kitchen. Then to the living room, where a small television box sits above a mantle, and large, chunky sofas dot the room. His parent’s have started up a conversation again. He thinks about his big house at the end of Endaltar. From a birds eye he sees the village, the long strip of road that cuts through it. North, his end, leads to large farm fields and a river. South leads to more and more houses, the xolvuntyard in the middle, a tiny shop beyond that, and a pub below someone’s house. Black and red post boxes dapple the roads here and there. Tree’s smother the houses. The tight straight road is suffocated by grass from either end, and small paths for walking. Cul-de-sacs and roads spiral off in all different directions. And the woods lay right near the crops. The bicycle comes to mind and he leaves the table.

Darnell walks down the long hallway, to his cosy room. This is his space. Where he can let his shoulders lower and thoughts disappear, thoughts about the worries of the world, school work, lovers, the future, acne, Tristan…

He sits at his desk, by his large black dial up computer. Whirrings signal it’s coming to life, as he connects his camera via a chewed cable. A printer begins to croak out his recent photographs, where he lays them on the floor by his bed. Though there are few, they spill out and flop around the small room, on his bed, under the desk, out the door. His walks have many picture frames, some are empty, ready and waiting, and some house images of Darnell with his cousins and out of town family members.

Amongst the freshly printed pictures one showcases a wormy griccid, writhing in the nearby woodland mud. A light pink rhododendron flower billows out it’s spotted leaves. More showcase insects from the local area, little hairy rain beetles, woodlice, a particularly large, black centipede. Tree’s, landscapes, hills, lightning, black clouds, grey rising smoke, Jowh smiling, his garden pond, a bumpy frog and finally Tristans bike.

His father glances in as he passes by the open door, he then walks backwards wielding a furrowed brow. He looks down at a picture, eyes locked on to it as he moves into the room. Darnell looks up from the floor. His dad murmurs to himself, “tristan cyad…” his voices raises and his eyes widen “I remember him now!”

Darnell questions him with a glance, his dad responds “I remember Tristan. How did I forget about your best bud? You used to hang out all the time!” His fingers tap his palms quickly as his thoughts begin to race. Seeing this, Darnell quickly grows relieved that someone else remembers him. “Weird right?”

“This village must be getting to us. We should get a break.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice, what do you remember about him?”

“He used to come by all the time, with that thing” he points to the bike “you would-”

“Go exploring right? Like- all the time.”

“All the time. He loved my lasagna. I should probably make it again.”

“Totally! He came for dinner loads!”

“I’ll have to tell your mum, we were certain you had the village mania.”

“I’d tell you if I had the endiwendis!” Darnell jokes.

His dad smiles, “Thats what they all say!” Darnell smiles back. A lag in the conversation causes them both to look away.

“What happened to him?” it was a quiet question to himself, more than wanting an actual answer.

His dad leaves the room, shaking their head in a slight daze by the new flooding memories. Darnells head drops so his eyes can linger on the pictures lit by his warm lamp, what a weird day.

Darnell is yet again on the long road to the bus stop, trudging the same footsteps four days a week. Back and forth. To school, back from school. His tired, groggy head hangs down, looking at the floor. Half of him is expecting to see another bike, the other half is early morn static. He passes the cul-de-sac, his peripherals try to catch movement inside, nothing. Except up ahead on the road, he spots a flapping yellow piece of paper attached to a wooden utility pole.

He nears. The wind blows hard. He slows. A face looks back at him. He recognises the form. Britanian legislation. The persons eyes meet his. Atop the missing person poster is:

“MISSING PERSON: TRISTAN CYCAD

HUMAN NUMBER: NC 0011 966 51112”

As soon as his eyes read the name, he looks away. He continues on down the road, to the polybus stop, the large people carrier halts, the kids get on, it huffs forward. Out the village and to the nearby market town of Foramen. Passed his old primary school of FrunWell, ending at Yssy: Ptyor School for Prastists at the edge of town. Lost in the loop. Darnells mind is blank. He stays on. The bus doors collapse in as the bus driver looks in the mirror. Worried for Darnell she brings him back to Endaltar.

He gets off, his mind clears as he walks home. Stopping at the spot where he had yesterdays tumble, he begins looking around the immediate area. Under blades of grass or muddy patches. Inside the nearby drain, nothing but crisp packets and a bright yellow drink bottle. His search vicinity grows larger.

Nearby streets. Under left over cars, there aren’t many from rush hour. In bushes. In climbable trees. A small ginnel takes his fancy. A bending road is next. The graveyard follows. A wilting flower catches his eye, it’s light red, almost pink and jostles in the wind. There’s nothing exact about what he’s searching for, nothing material. The aim of his search is for memories, something must trigger the old, hidden thoughts stuck in my head. They are there, just locked in a box. The bike was a key, and maybe there are more.

Nearing the field of dying crops he wanders down a thin street, buildings with large front gardens and large shadow casting trees, pace themselves out to the right and left. At the end of the street is a dwindling pathway that runs through the farmland aiming for the tree line. Darnells pace slows because his eyes have stopped darting around, they are fixed on a bronze cylinder in front.

As he grows closer, he realises it’s a telescope laying on the road. It’s sight is aimed at the woods, Darnell takes a moment, breathing in the winds that erase stillness. His eyes look up to the towering wave of leaves out yonder. His orange, knotting hair waves around his eyes, obscuring his view. He feels the call of the emptiness again, a smell of adventure, a taste of danger. Just like old times.

Marching to his left, he knocks a tune on the closest door. The wind ever present. Always moving around him. The leaves of the trees above him move and rustle the air, but no crack allows light rays to seep through. No answer has come. Darnell cups his head and pears through the side window, there is nothing but walls inside it. No furniture or pictures or stains, just dust. He feels a ripple of goosebumps follow a shiver down his spine. His legs run him home.

Bursting through the office room door, Darnells eyes stumble around the room to find his dad playing sudoku on a computer. His dad’s eyes go from concentration to surprised, he takes off his headphones emitting tinny classical music.

“You missed your bus? Your mother can’t drop work today.” he stands up from his desk.

“No, dad, I found- this thing, I looked around the village.” Darnell talks over him, and passes the bronze telescope over to his dad. Taking it, he looks over it whilst Darnell continues his explanation.

“There was a missing sign for Tristan so I looked around. Then I found that a few streets down. Do you know who owns it?”

“That’s… that’s James.” He looks over the telescope in silence, looking through it at the low silvery vent in the wall, “Was it on the street that leads to the forest?”

“One of them.”

His father, steps back and falls into his chair, a perplexed brow hangs over his narrowing eyes.

“I’m only just remembering him.”

“The whole street’s deserted. Closer you get to the woods the less people.”

Their eyes connect, “Put your shoes on!”

Darnell looks down to his dirty shoes then back up to his dad, who returns with a jokingly dissatisfied look.

Their walk is full of unanswered questions, some linger in the mind and others are verbalised.

“Did he have a partner?”

“I’m sure he did, he had a ring and would often talk about them- I think. I’m blanking on details. Not one iota of information.”

“What about kids? How old where they?- How old was he?”

Silence was his answer. The road approaches.

“How did you know him?”

“The guidhall meetups. We had a fundraiser.”

“You remember that?”

“They had good cakes on.”

“Who else was there?”

“This is the road.” He tells Darnell, who already knew. His dad knocks on the door, mirroring the tune from before. His hand rests on the door handle. “Wait” Darnell hushes a shout.

The handle turns, the door opens softly, dust dances in the gutted front room. Beyond that is the empty darkness which comes with abandoned houses. A cold dark hangs around the room. The elephant here is ancient, beyond the times of mammoths.

“Hello?” the fathers words cut through the icy air. They each catch a chill, a shiver runs down Darnells spine.

“Maybe they moved out.” his dad suggests.

“All of them?”

His dad leans back out the door, and looks down the path through the field of crops, unintentionally whispering under his breath “closer to the woods”.

“You think they have something to do with it?” Darnell joins his gaze.

“I don’t know, son.” Darnell walks out towards the woodland expanse. Paternal instincts kick in and his dad rushes ahead protectively pushing in front.

The pair wander through the fields cautiously looking around their vicinity and towards the trees in front. Far to the East, black smoke billows. A few shiny figures set the crop ablaze in the West. Objects pass them by at their feet. A wooden crate, almost eaten by the vegetation. A glass bottle filled with dirt. His dad kicks a deflated football, it disappears into the cropland. Darnell takes a picture of a lamp plugged into the dirt.

The wind picks up as the buildings behind grow smaller, the yellow crops around them wave in the wind making the one frozen black crop stand out. Petrified in the black rot, it is unwavering, resistant to the wind. The surrounding cultivated grain bends over around it, further in the distance more and more of these black fingers can be seen. Shooting out the sea of vegetation. Darnell takes a picture.

The wind sucks them closer to the woods, hair lapping their heads. A clotting of weeds tumble by the road, a packet of crisps floats by. Darnell follows behind his father who cautiously enters the woods, a shadow looms over him, the son joins after. He holds his shoulders low and broad, feigning courage to impress his father.

He thinks back to his childhood: a happenstance in the woods in the town make this decision far harder than it would ought to be. To enter these woods is to break a promise he made with himself long ago. None of that matters now. He seeks the truth, and salvation for a friend lost and forgotten.

Silence. The woods dark and quiet, dead, without wind. The motion of the air wobbled around the treeline, but never entered it. The dense yew trees, the occasional oak, and the odd chestnut shield the inside from the howling winds, and stop all sound entering or leaving. But there is no sound inside to leave. “No birds, or crickets.” says the dad.

A teddy bear watches from a branch. Another picture taken. The dad stares at a picture of a family, a nasty twinge of a memory hits his insides. Darnell presses on, so the dad does also. FLASH. The dad jumps out his skin, he jutters around to Darnell who sheepishly smiles back. “Sorry, auto.” they share an awkward laugh. A ‘Happy Birthday’ streamer is hung high above them. Notes of papers lie in the muddy, stick filled ground. A book case hides amongst a collection of bushes next to a pool of blackness. “What is this?”

Darnell looks towards where his dad is looking. In the far distance the lone objects have turned into mounds. Flashes occur, as Darnell tries to photograph everything. Document these oddities. The feeling represented in items lost in the woods is low in the stomach, it holds a place in the spine, and creates the unending sorrow to a good story. They both sit with it. Without words. There are no words. It’s empty bedrooms. A moving box in the old house. A car ride to university. A stranger in a hospital bed. A burn mark. A dog collar lies in front of Darnell who readies his camera.

The fathers face is locked in absolute confusion as lights flash behind him. His eyes leered far into the distance. The focus beyond the mounds. His eyes dry out like something died in them. Something falls from a mound with a wet clunk. Darnell looks towards it, then to his father. “Dad?”

He pushes Darnell back. Pushing his shoulders. Darnell tries to look behind him, to see what moved. His dad holds his head and shoulder. Pushing harder. The fast walk becomes a jog. Once they are passed the treeline, the fear of being hit in the end by a branch disappears and the fear of the woods takes hold. The jog becomes a run. Fear intensifies as the once harrowing houses now grow closer with the warmth of knowing and reliability. The building pressure and fear seems to stem from a feeling of almost arriving to safety, as if the closer you get the harder it is to make it, the harder the shadows will work to grab you. They sprint through the objects stuck in the mud.

The large open expanse above them disappears when they reach the houses. The manic run abruptly stops as they pant for air. Darnell turns and looks back. The dad bends over.

“Dad? What was that? Dad? Dad! What did you see? Dad-”

He jitters a response whilst turning to the woods, “Don’t go into those woods Darnell. Don’t ever go into those woods.”

Darnell turns to his father, who’s stare is fixated at something unseen. His eyes are blood shot, with red streaks across is pupils.

The front door closes as they take off their shoes.

“What the fuck was that?”

His dad turns away from the front window, and gives a stern look with a voice to match, “Language!”

“FATHER!?”

“Son?” he jokes. After no smile appears on Darnells face, he sighs and answers “A bear.”

“We don’t get bears.”

“I saw a bear.” His dad looks left. “A black bear”

“That’s hoarding peoples things.”

“Maybe”

“DAD!”

“James moved out, that’s probably just his old stuff dumped by movers.”

“That you forgot about?”

“It happens. We aren’t exactly close.”

“I was… with Tristan.”

“You’ve had a lot on your mind recently, a lot of gruff on a tiny plate.”

“What are we going to do?”

“About what?”

“People are disappearing, their shit is lying in the forest. None of this makes sense.”

“Exactly, it doesn’t make any sense. We don’t know what exactly is happening.”

“We should tell people.”

“We’re leaving it alone.”

Darnells voice raises, “What if it comes for us?” frustrated with his fathers neglect of the situation.

“It? What? What it?” his father raises his voice louder.

“The thing in the woods!”

“THERE IS NO THING IN THE WOODS!”

“WE FUCKING RAN!”

“LANGUAGE!”

“PEOPLE ARE GOING MISSING!”

“SHUT UP DARNELL!”

“WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!”

“DARNELL! PLEA-” he catches himself shouting, and lowers his voice, a tear falls from his grey, scratched eyes “please, please leave it Darnell, please, for the love of the Loop, forget it, drop it, whatever it takes, to just not think about it.”

Darnell growls and punches the wall. His knuckles spark, mostly the pinky that begins to grow red. They don’t look at each other as they stand in the hallway, breathing heavily. Darnell goes to his room.

The air is filled with a tender sombre in Darnells small room. It’s tight and restrictive. The motions of his hands, digits, forearms all carry the act of printing and placing photographs around the room again, but his shoulders are low and his tongue is bitter. He feels a great adventure was missed, he peaked the veil and now is too scared and confused to continue the look. Again, in his life. And worse still a village is to suffer from it, unknown people are forgotten and lost. He has been through this all before, but that’s a story for another time.

His eyes fall low onto a photo of a bike wheel rusting in the mud. Is it better they are forgotten? Is it better he forgets? Will all the therapy I have had be unravelled if I leave this alone? How long has this been happening? Will it continue? These questions swirl around his mind.

Let’s think this through. People have been going missing, grabbed by some unknown entity, their items taken to the woods, their left behind items trigger a memory response. And then they come back in our heads. It’s beyond disturbing, it’s terrifying. He looks outside his window, down the road his house is on, is an old street light, signalling the end of the North End Road, before it becomes just another country road. He would often take pictures from this window of people walking by, under the orange buzzing glow. It was closing in on home time for many of the villagers. The road would be cluttered with cars and smog, then followed by runners and dog walkers, then by teens, then by ghouls in the night.

It’s better they forget, he surmised. Better to not know of the torment, he thinks back to the horror of Mrs Cycad. Her despair and self hate were palpable in that harrowing moment, and later in the yellow flickering paper. I can’t put someone through that again.

“Your mothers coming back early. I told her you were ill, she’s bringing dinner.” his fathers voice comes from behind, it shocks Darnell but not enough for him to physically react so he keeps his head towards the window.

“It’s probably best we don’t talk about today. Let’s just have a nice family meal. Sleep on it. Figure out what to do tomorrow.” his dad continues, Darnell turns to meet his face, but doesn’t look into his greying, blightbitten eyes. “Okay daddy.” he hadn’t called him that in a while, but it didn’t feel weird this time. His dad smiles and leaves.

Three greasy, paper bags are placed on the table mats. Darnell brings in three plates. His mum ruffles his crimson, coiling hair, and asks “Want to sit at the head of the table?” a spot usually reserved to the person who cooks, usually his dad. Darnell smiles and nods, which brings a warmth back inside him, his dad was right, it’s best they think about normal things for tonight. Sitting down they hand out burgers, fries, drinks, potato paste and sauces. They do their Prastist rituals before tucking in. Head bowed, inhale, loop the head, down again, exhale. Deliciously brutal food, the taste reminds him of hotel rooms with their sharp carpets and dark lights. A special type of gluttony is quenched within.

“Did you have a good day sweetie?” his dad asks with thin chips in hand.

“It was okay. Glad I came home early. Had a lot of work backed up after the warehouse closed down but we’re keeping on top of it. That was the third this month.”

As he enjoys his burger, the lettuce, pickles and tomato slipping out from the bun, he tunes out the conversation. His eyes look for the ketchup, it’s in the centre of the table. The long table. He looks down it from a perspective he’s not seen in a long time. The dinning table stands proudly in the centre of the dinning room, and connects to the kitchen with an archway. Both fairly large rooms, made larger by the arch.

The table is long. With seven chairs. It can’t be… the house is large, housing many bathrooms and… bedrooms. No image of each bedrooms interior can be found inside his mind. Just the door and the knowledge that they are indeed a bedroom, a footnote to the memory. He looks around the bare walls, with sporadically placed photographs of himself and his parents. He doesn’t want to believe it, there has to be an explanation. Then a synapse connects with another, a thought is created. Seven chairs. An odd number. Created for the means of a large family. My large family.

He shakes the thought away. Wanting to join the conversation again. But the sound of his mother voice is dulled. He wants to forget with them. But he can’t look away this time. Not again. Not like with the yellow paper. Not with Tristan.

There’s supposed to be more people in this house.

He knows it.

He glides up the stairs, leaving the food behind. Worried, blurry faces look on. Worrisome energy bounces around the room. He walks to a closed door. Ideas of leaving it alone float up. Everything in him screams that he is an only child. That none of this makes any sense. That he is wrong.

Until the hand resting on the door floats to the handle, and he enters the room. Darnell stifles a cry. His right eye swells with water. His legs start to shake. His shoulders wobble. His fingers twitch. It’s a room of nothing. An open window brings the cycle of air. It’s cold and smells of the outdoors.

Memories search for anything of the person that used to live here. Nothing comes except Tristan. He finds old forgotten souvenirs inside his mind. The pair finding an old bunker. Tristan laughing with milk coming out his nose. Darnell saving Tristan from choking. Them both running down the road on a golden summer morning. These were ripped away from him. His legs almost buckle. These memories were almost taken from me, burnt away by that thing in the woods. His eyes are glued to the windowsill. Where the window opens, are scratch marks in the wood. Like scratches from nails.

His fingers stop twitching. He finds his footing. Tristan was taken by the fucking thing. That black bear. Digits clench into a fist. His forearms bulge. That withering mass. The tear runs down his cheek as his low hanging head finally rises. I’ll bring it down.

Darnell checks the clock, almost rush hour. He runs to his room and grabs all the photos he can stuff into a bag. Writing on paper in large black writing, he stuffs those in too, followed by tape and flash lights. Darting to the front door, he hears his parents still chatting, he pauses for a moment, takes a breath, opens the door quietly and tiptoes out.

Post after post, he works his way towards the bus stop, sticking photos and posters with large text on them. Saying the likes of ‘THE THING IN THE WOODS TOOK THEM’, ‘IT THAT TOOK YOUR LOVED ONES, IS IN THE WOODS’ and ‘TO THE WOODS, THEIR ITEMS REMAIN’.

Soon the whole North End Road is covered in paper and pictures. Just in time too, the first rotamotor enters the village. Darnell walks back home, checking over his shoulder to see the vehicles slowing down at the posters. The flash lights he left aimed towards the woods by empty houses. Shadows in suits and ties exit their rotamotas. Their heads arched up towards the posts. Chattering commotions are heard from behind him, his walks quickens as the vehicles stop on the side of the road ahead, their lights beaming at the posters. The wind picks up. Desperate confusion is carried on it. The idling cars produce their smog. Oil is in the air. Not too far off, silvery workers return to nearby homes. Smokey figures walk towards their homes, as people have started to gather. Crowds forming at the croplands entrance. The odd person grabs a light or produces their own and trudges towards the woods. The crowd beckons over a couple of the silver people.

Darnell sits in his room. Neither happy nor sad. Purely submitting to the moment. Waiting.

The wind howls like a beast near the woods. The crops swing wildly from side to side. Black slithers stand tall amongst them. People in uniforms, suits, coveralls and more wander together towards the woods. Some hold lights, whilst others carry wrenches, pipes, a saw. Leading the main charge is a group of rotburners, their silver flame proof suits cover their bodies, but their faces are uncovered. Their foreheads hold sweat as their eyes hold tears. Flamethrowers to each of them, burning and creeping forward. Some oak appear to have multiple yew saplings growing from branches, their wetness boiling makes them scream and pop. The wind screams as the smoke rises to join the other plumes in the distance. Mounds set alight. Memories reconvene amongst the people, as the ground turns to ash beneath them.